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Crypto pundit Xaif has shared an aspect in which Vitalik Buterin admitted that XRP is ahead of Ethereum in. This comes as Ripple looks to dominate the payments industry using XRP, RLUSD, and the XRP Ledger. 

Vitalik Shares What Aspect XRP Leads Ethereum In

In an X post, Xaif shared a 2014 quote from Vitalik Buterin stating that Ripple, not Ethereum, is the Internet of Value. While Ethereum has focused on building a foundation for the decentralized financial system, Ripple has focused on building the Internet of Value using the Ledger, with XRP and RLUSD serving as important tools for this vision. 

Ethereum and Ripple have continued to reiterate their missions even as crypto continues to gain mainstream adoption. Earlier this year, Vitalik Buterin described Ethereum as the Linux of the decentralized world. He stated that they must ensure Ethereum serves as the financial home for individuals and organizations seeking greater autonomy. Buterin added that they must give people access to the power of the network without dependence on intermediaries. 

Meanwhile, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated in January that their two major acquisitions, Ripple Prime and GTreasury, greatly accelerate and expand their ability to deliver on their vision of enabling the Internet of Value. He added that the token has been and will continue to be the heartbeat of that vision. 

More recently, Garlinghouse described the token as Ripple’s “North Star,” which guides their mission and daily operations. Xaif also shared a video in which the Ripple CEO stated that they are 100% committed to making XRP the “most trusted, most useful, and most liquid digital asset on the planet.”

It is worth noting that XRP currently ranks as the fifth largest crypto by market cap, behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and BNB. The altcoin regained the third spot this year, just behind Ethereum, after beginning the year as one of the largest gainers, but it has since lost these gains amid the crypto market downtrend. 

The Ledger Behind Ethereum In This Regard

RWA.xyz data shows that the XRP Ledger is currently behind Ethereum in tokenization. The total tokenized value on Ethereum is $15.5 billion, while the Ledger has a total tokenized value of $1.9 billion. However, the Ledger has achieved greater growth over the last 30 days, with tokenized value rising 15%, while that on Ethereum has risen just over 10%. 

The Ledger has notably seen upgrades, such as the Permissioned DEX, which have contributed to tokenization growth on the network. The Permissioned DEX enables institutional investors to trade in a regulated environment. Ripple continues to partner with institutions to tokenize several funds on the network. Last month, the crypto firm partnered with U.K. giant Aviva Investors to develop tokenized versions of traditional funds.

Zcash Open Development Lab, the company formed by the team formerly known as Electric Coin Company, has raised more than $25 million from a roster of heavyweight crypto investors including a16z, Paradigm, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, Maelstrom (family office of Arthur Hayes), Chapter One, David Friedberg, Haseeb Qureshi, Mert, Balaji and others.

What This Means For Zcash

The round lands just months after the ECC team regrouped under a new name, and gives the Zcash-focused builder fresh capital to expand its wallet and protocol work without leaning on the network’s development fund. Josh Swihart, who now leads ZODL after previously serving as CEO of ECC, framed the raise as a bet on product traction rather than a brand reset. “The name is new, but our team has been building Zcash for a decade,” he wrote. “A couple of years ago, my team and I set out to change the trajectory of Zcash with an uncompromising focus on the user experience for shielded ZEC. We released Zodl (then called Zashi) and have never looked back.”

That pitch is backed by a set of numbers the team clearly wants the market to notice. According to ZODL, its wallet has helped drive adoption of the Zcash shielded pool by more than 400% since launch, while facilitating over $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025. Swihart said the company first shipped what he called a “normie-friendly wallet,” then layered in integrations with Flexa for retail spending, Keystone for cold storage and, more recently, NEAR-powered intents for ZEC swaps.

The capital raise is also meant to change how that work gets funded. “This funding allows us to bring these ambitions to life, without relying on Zcash dev fund grants to get there,” Swihart wrote. Alongside Zodl, the company said it is building Zallet, a full-node wallet that will serve as the foundation for new desktop software, with the longer-term goal of creating “a private, decentralized financial system as an alternative to legacy institutions.”

ZODL’s own announcement leaned heavily on continuity. The company said the full ECC team, including the engineers responsible for designing and maintaining some of Zcash’s core systems, moved over earlier this year. It added that protocol development remains central to the company’s work, but argued that future upgrades should stay tied to usability and product-market fit rather than protocol design in isolation.

Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox read the raise as something larger than a routine venture financing. “Twenty-five million dollars is a big investment! For a company that makes a wallet!?” he wrote in a thread reacting to the news. “This set of investors is a signal. They are big, sophisticated, long-standing, and reputable.”

He focused on what the deal does not appear to offer. There is no new token for investors to capture, he noted, and no control over the Zcash protocol itself. “There is no new token that the investors can get a cut of! The ZEC supply is locked in, with a 21M total supply cap, like Bitcoin,” Wilcox wrote. “The investors don’t get control of the protocol! Zcash is permissionless, open-source, and has a huge number and variety of stakeholders.”

From there, Wilcox sketched out a theory of the round: investors may see the wallet business as a monetizable entry point, but just as importantly, some may be underwriting broader ZEC adoption itself. He pointed to public disclosures from Cypherpunk Technologies, which he said already holds more than 1% of ZEC’s eventual supply, and argued that its equity stake in ZODL is smaller than its exposure to the coin.

His conclusion was blunt. “These people are betting that Zcash — not crypto, not privacy, not Bitcoin, not zero-knowledge-proofs — Zcash will be critically important for our civilization,” he wrote.

At press time, Zcash traded at $221.95.

Bitcoin crossed back above $70,000 on Monday as traders responded to signals that the US military campaign against Iran might be winding down — pushing the broader crypto market up 3% in 24 hours before a fresh round of war rhetoric from US President Donald Trump complicated the picture.

The gains were tied directly to comments Trump made in a CBS News phone interview, where he suggested Iran had been so thoroughly struck that little remained of its military capability.

Oil prices plunged on the news, dropping from a four-year high of $118 a barrel down to roughly $85 — a 25% slide that eased inflation fears and nudged investors back toward riskier assets like crypto.

Relief Rally Or Just Noise?

Analysts were quick to pump the brakes. Industry observers said the headline comments were hard to take at face value, noting that other members of Trump’s cabinet had described the conflict as still in its opening phase, with US military assets still active in the region.

Crypto would keep tracking other risk assets in the near term, with oil — not any crypto-specific narrative — still calling the shots on macro sentiment.

Market observers said that while the conflict was unlikely to be resolved soon, tradable bounces were possible, and Bitcoin could outperform as a potential store of value during periods of prolonged uncertainty.

Will A Ceasefire Lift Crypto Price?

Others offered a similar read. A genuine ceasefire, they said, could spark a strong rally in digital assets — driven by falling energy prices, reduced inflation pressure, and renewed appetite for risk.

But caution prevailed. Doubts persisted amid mixed signals, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard publicly dismissing Trump’s remarks as “nonsense” and insisting Tehran, not Washington, would decide when fighting stops.

Trump’s Own Words Muddy The Outlook

The uncertainty deepened when Trump posted on Truth Social hours after the CBS interview, threatening that Iran would be struck “20 times harder” if it moved to block oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

At a Republican fundraising event in Florida the same day, he told supporters: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”

Reports indicate US forces have struck more than 3,000 Iranian targets since operations began. That backdrop — ongoing military activity, contradictory presidential statements, and an adversary refusing to acknowledge defeat — leaves crypto in a holding pattern.

The 3% gain looks more like a reaction to a headline than the start of a sustained move. Until the geopolitical picture clarifies, digital assets appear content to follow oil’s lead rather than forge a path of their own.

Featured image from Mudrex, chart from TradingView

На живущую во Франции супружескую пару напали преступники, переодетые полицейскими. Пострадавшие были вынуждены отдать биткоины на 900 000 евро (около $1 млн).

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York on March 9, Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, said there is “some bipartisan support” for legislation to codify the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, even if the timing may slip beyond the current Congress.

President Donald Trump signed the executive order creating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve on March 6, 2025. The order directed the Treasury to set up an office to control the reserve, capitalize it with forfeited bitcoin already held by the government, and keep BTC in the reserve from being sold. It also authorized Treasury and Commerce to develop “budget neutral” strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin without imposing incremental costs on taxpayers.

Bipartisan Support Builds For US Bitcoin Reserve

The order also came with concrete deadlines. Agencies had 30 days, until April 5, 2025, to review whether they could transfer government-held BTC into the reserve and to provide a full accounting of digital assets in their possession. Treasury then had 60 days, until May 5, 2025, to deliver a legal and investment evaluation on how the reserve should be established and managed, including whether further legislation would be needed.

The most substantive official update arrived on July 30, 2025, when the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets said the Treasury had already delivered those considerations to the White House under Section 3(e) of the order and would keep coordinating on “appropriate next steps” to operationalize the reserve. The White House was still publicly describing the reserve as an established policy as recently as January 20, 2026.

One important caveat remains: those deadlines produced internal reporting, not a public accounting of the reserve. In other words, agencies were required to report what they held, and Treasury was required to report back to the White House, but the administration has still not publicly disclosed how many BTC are actually in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. For the public, that leaves a crucial piece of the story unresolved: the reserve exists on paper and as executive policy, but its confirmed size remains unknown.

That leaves the current status fairly clear, even if not fully transparent. The reserve exists as executive branch policy. The deadlines in the order have long since passed. The Treasury has formally reported back. But a fuller statutory framework still appears to be the next step if the administration wants the reserve locked in beyond executive action alone.

Witt’s remarks are notable because they point to exactly that next stage. “There is also a push to advance other legislation to codify the strategic Bitcoin reserve,” he said. “Whether or not we’re able to get to those in this Congress, there is some bipartisan support for those. So, into the next Congress, a lot of those bills can be marked up potentially in advance and then be taken up in a future either individual vote on those or potentially in a must pass like an NDAA for example.”

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $69,894.

Разработчики криптокошелька Trust Wallet объявили о создании автоматической защиты адресов от «криптопылевых атак». Это вариант мошеннической схемы, когда злоумышленники подсовывают пользователям поддельные адреса, похожие на адреса недавних транзакций.

Автор книги о личных финансах Роберт Кийосаки (Robert Kiyosaki) назвал компанию, которая первой обанкротится из-за надвигающегося, по мнению писателя, экономического кризиса.

Despite its disappointing performance over the last bull run, Ethereum has remained a top choice for investors across the crypto sector. Its position as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap makes it one of the first stops for new and old investors. But with the price still trading well below its previous all-time high, the question remains as to whether this is a good time to actually buy Ethereum, and if there will be great returns by the end of the year.

Can Ethereum Cross $3,000 This Year?

The machine learning algorithm at the CoinCodex website gives a breakdown of where the Ethereum price could be each month of the year, taking certain factors into account. Going by the predictions on the website, it seems that the year 2026 is expected to be a rather bullish one for Ethereum. It also answers the question of whether ETH’s price could break $3,000 again this year.

One interesting thing of note is that the predictions show that each month will finish higher than the current price. Besides the month of March, there is no other month in 2026 where the algorithm predicts that the Ethereum price will fall below $2,000 again. Instead, the predictions show possible double-digit increases for the digital asset.

As for when the price could cross $3,000, it suggests that this could happen sometime in May, which is two months from now. After that, the price is expected to fall below $3,000 again, trending around this level till the end of the month.

Taking into account that the highest level for the year is expected to be around $3,673, it would mean an approximately 90% gain on the price if bought from current levels. If holding through to the end of the year, the highest level in December 2026 is expected to reach $2,477. This would mean a 28% return on investment.

Going by the prediction, March would be the best time to get into Ethereum at the lowest prices in 2026. Then the best time to sell would be in May when the price is expected to hit its peak. From June to the end of the year, the price is expected to then trade in a fairly tight range.

Команда разработчиков криптовалюты Zcash, покинувшая компанию Electric Coin Company (ECC) в январе, сообщила о привлечении более $25 млн на развитие приватного кошелька Zodl. В числе инвесторов названы Coinbase Ventures и a16z Crypto.

Финансовая разведка Республики Корея (FIU) направила занимающей второе место по объему торгов в стране криптобирже Bithumb уведомление о приостановке операций на срок до полугода.

Прокуратура США потребовала повторный судебный процесс над сооснователем криптовалютного миксера Tornado Cash Романом Штормом. Ведомство рассчитывает осудить разработчика по обвинению в отмывании денег и нарушении режима санкций.

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy has continued its accumulation push with a fresh acquisition involving 17,994 tokens of the cryptocurrency.

Strategy Has Expanded Bitcoin Reserve With New $1.28 Billion Buy

In a new post on X, Strategy chairman Michael Saylor has shared details related to the latest routine Monday Bitcoin acquisition completed by the company. This buy was on the larger side, including a sum of 17,994 BTC. Strategy had to spend an average of $70,946 per token or $1.28 billion in total to assemble this stack.

In 2026 so far, the firm has made only one purchase that has been larger: the 22,305 BTC acquisition from January (worth $2.12 billion at the time). Following this new large addition, Strategy’s holdings have grown to 738,731 BTC, equivalent to nearly 3.7% of all tokens in circulation.

According to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the purchase was funded using sales of the company’s STRC and MSTR at-the-market (ATM) stock offerings.

Overall, this was the 102nd Bitcoin buy made by Strategy. In total, the treasury company has invested $56.04 billion into the cryptocurrency with these acquisitions.

These massive holdings are currently underwater, however, as the firm’s cost basis sits at $75,862 BTC, putting Strategy’s reserve in about 9% unrealized loss at the current spot price. Despite the underwater status, though, the company has continued to make purchases recently, solidifying its position as the largest public holder of Bitcoin, as the table from BitcoinTreasuries.net shows.

While accumulation from other digital asset treasury companies has fallen off after the bearish shift that the cryptocurrency sector has faced since the last quarter of 2025, another company besides Strategy has also continued to make regular purchases: Bitmine.

Bitmine is the largest Ethereum treasury and only second behind Strategy in overall public digital asset holders ranking. The company’s market standing is despite the fact that it only adopted its ETH treasury strategy in mid-2025.

Recently, the firm has been making regular Monday purchase announcements just like Strategy. According to the latest press release, Bitmine acquired 60,976 ETH over the past week, which is higher than 40,000 to 50,000 ETH average that the company has been hovering around lately. “As the adage goes, nobody ‘rings the bell at the bottom’ and therefore Bitmine’s strategy is to now slightly increase its pace of ETH accumulation,” noted Tom Lee, the company’s chairman.

Following the latest accumulation spree, Bitmine’s holdings have grown to 4,534,563 ETH, which represents a network supply share of 3.76%. The company has set a target of 5% of the Ethereum supply, so at this figure, it is already more than 75% of the way through.

BTC Price

Bitcoin dropped under $66,000 on Sunday, but the asset has since bounced back a bit as it’s now floating around $68,600.

Крипторынок перешел в фазу стабилизации, однако для полноценного возвращения бычьего ралли биткоину необходим приток нового капитала. К такому выводу пришли аналитики ончейн-платформы Glassnode.

Затяжной конфликт между США и Ираном способен привести к росту курса биткоина. Такое мнение высказал руководитель консалтинговой компании по вопросам биткоина Risk Dimensions и бывший топ-менеджер Credit Suisse Марк Коннорс (Mark Connors). По его словам, военные расходы увеличивают бюджетный дефицит, расширяют ликвидность и оказывают давление на доллар.

Сооснователь криптобиржи BitMEX и инвестор Артур Хейс (Arthur Hayes) назвал децентрализованную платформу Hyperliquid лидером криптоиндустрии по доходности, если не учитывать эмитентов стейблкоинов.

US banks may need regulatory clarity more than the crypto industry, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chief said, arguing they risk falling behind the rest of the world.

Regulatory Uncertainty Could Leave US Banks Behind

On Sunday, Chris Giancarlo, former chairman of the CFTC, discussed the significant policy reversal under the Trump administration that has been driving crypto innovation in the US, including the highly anticipated market structure bill.

In an interview for Scott Melker’s The Wolf Of All Streets podcast, the ex-CFTC chief affirmed that landmark stablecoin legislation enacted last July, the GENIUS Act, was “the appetizer” for crypto regulation, while the market structure bill, also known as the CLARITY Act, represents the main dish but has become the “hard part.”

For context, the CLARITY Act has been stalled for nearly two months after the Senate Banking Committee published its bill draft in mid-January. Multiple policies, including key restrictions for stablecoin issuers, were criticized by crypto leaders, leading to a prolonged fight between banks and the digital assets industry.

Giancarlo affirmed that banks need regulatory clarity more than the crypto industry, arguing that they will be hesitant to invest in new technology without clear rules, and their systems will be superseded.

The banks, however, can’t afford regulatory uncertainty. Their general counselors are telling their boards, you can’t invest billions of dollars in this (…) unless you’ve got regulatory certainty. (…) The banks need this clarity because they need to build this. They need to be in the forefront, not in the rear guard of this innovation.

On the contrary, the crypto industry will continue to build and innovate in other jurisdictions. “They are risk-takers. They’re going to build it here, or they’re going to build it abroad,” the former CFTC chairman asserted.

If the CLARITY Act isn’t passed, Giancarlo believes the leaders of financial regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and CFTC, will likely establish the necessary rules to oversee the sector.

“They won’t have the support of legislation that makes it work forever or at least into the next presidential cycle, but it’ll make it work for now. Now, does that give the industry the certainty they want? No. And who needs that certainty more than the banks? Crypto doesn’t need it. They were building even under the whip hand of Gary Gensler,” he added.

Are The Odds In Crypto Regulation’s Favor?

Giancarlo emphasized that the digital assets legislation has become a political issue, with Republicans opposing Democrats, and traditional finance (TradFi) opposing decentralized finance (DeFi) and new technologies.

The ex-CFTC chief also noted that the challenges of the regulatory timing, asserting that “If we could not be in a worse time, we’re in an election year.” During this period, politicians’ focus is on the upcoming mid-term elections, he detailed, and “everything that takes place in Washington (…) is all about swaying the voters for the elections.”

Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged lawmakers to pass the stalled bill this spring. He acknowledged the efforts of a bipartisan working group to advance the legislation, emphasizing that Democrats are open to collaborating with Republicans.

He also warned that the chances of reaching a deal could crumble if Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives in November, given the Biden administration’s stringent regulations on the industry.

Despite the delay, Giancarlo believes the odds are 60-40 in favor of passing the legislation, arguing that there’s “a lot of good in the bill for all sides” and its importance is recognized by all parties.

“I think there’s a recognition that this is the new architecture of finance and America, our financial institutions are the world’s dominant financial institutions. We need to modernize that. We need to adopt this technology,” he concluded.

Крупнейшие банки США, включая JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs и Citigroup, рассматривают возможность подать иск против Управления контролера денежного обращения США (OCC). По их мнению, новая волна лицензий для криптокомпаний, платежных сервисов и финтех-стартапов может создать риски для финансовой системы и потребителей.

Российский вице-премьер Александр Новак предложил изменить порядок оплаты передачи электроэнергии для майнинговых ферм и дата-центров. С 2027 года объекты мощностью от 670 кВт могут перевести на схему «бери или плати» — исходя из 90% заявленной мощности, а не фактического потребления, сообщило издание «Ъ».

The South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, is facing significant legal and operational challenges following a major system error in February. This resulted in more than $43 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) being distributed to users, prompting scrutiny from regulatory bodies. 

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has preliminarily notified Bithumb of a six-month partial suspension of its business for alleged violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations under the Special Financial Transactions Act. 

Bithumb’s Business Operations Under Fire 

According to local media reports, the FIU, part of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), has expressed concerns regarding Bithumb’s interactions with an undeclared overseas virtual asset operator and the exchange’s failure to fulfill KYC obligations. 

The preliminary sanctions include a six-month business suspension and a reprimand for the company’s CEO, Lee Jae-won. Although new members will be unable to transfer digital assets, existing users will still be able to deposit and withdraw both Korean won and cryptocurrency without issue.

Notably, the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit plans to conduct a sanctions review committee meeting later this month to determine the final level of repercussions for Bithumb. 

In response to the notification, a Bithumb representative clarified that this measure is currently a preliminary step, indicating that adjustments to the sanctions could still be made. He noted that the restrictions will only apply to new users’ virtual asset transfers.

‘Ghost Bitcoin Incident’

This latest development follows pressure from lawmakers in South Korea for regulators to take action following the incident on February 6. 

Reports indicate that financial authorities have created an emergency response team, collaborating with the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA), a self-regulatory organization representing domestic exchanges. 

This team has begun inspecting asset verification and internal control systems at four other major platforms—Upbit, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX. Any deficiencies discovered could be integrated into DAXA’s self-regulatory guidelines, potentially influencing future cryptocurrency legislation in South Korea.

For context, the incident that prompted these measures stemmed from a mistake involving a promotional event at Bithumb, where an employee mistakenly distributed 620,000 Bitcoin, valued at over $40 billion, among 249 users. 

Fortunately, 99% of the distributed BTC was recovered. However, the event raised serious questions about the exchange’s internal controls and ledger management practices. 

Previous regulatory filings indicated that Bithumb only held 175 BTC in its own reserves and less than 50,000 Bitcoin when accounting for both its assets and those held by customers. 

This discrepancy suggests that the exchange’s systems failed to prevent the erroneous transaction, causing irregular distributions that distorted market prices.

As Kim Jiho, a spokesperson for the ruling Democratic Party, remarked, the “ghost Bitcoin incident” exposed not just a simple input error but deeper structural weaknesses within cryptocurrency exchanges’ internal control frameworks. 

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

Министерство финансов США опубликовало отчет для Конгресса, в котором признало, что криптомиксеры могут использоваться не только для незаконных операций, но и для законной защиты финансовой конфиденциальности. Регулятор предложил меры по борьбе с отмыванием денег через такие сервисы.